WHERE: Vallo: The Outpost WHEN: March 28th, 2033 (Future Dated??? IDK) WHAT: Past Tyler meets Future Caroline and finds out some things about a possible future of his. WARNINGS: Apocalypse Vibes STATUS: Complete
The whole thing had been more than a little nerve wracking if you asked Caroline, but then she supposed it couldn't really be anything but. It was, though, about as good of a plan as they were going to get. The waiting part just sucked.
But soon enough the group started to trickle into the Outpost. Caroline knew there'd be a lot to sort out with the added people, but it could be put off for a few minutes at least. And as she glanced around at others awaiting their missing loved ones she knew she wasn't the only one thinking so.
Besides, there was one face she wanted to see more than anyone else right then. And as it came into view she didn't even think before she was moving. A quick sorry spoken as she pushed past someone. As she came closer to Tyler she all but launched herself at him, hugging him tight.
It took a minute, but the remember where you were ten years ago caught up and Caroline let go of her death grip and pulled back, though she kept her hands on his arms. She glanced down and smiled a little sheepishly. "Uh… hi," she said and glanced back up.
So…this was a lot.
When Caleb and Essek of the future had come through with Terminator-esque warnings of the future and the doom that was looming in their own time, Tyler had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t in some kind of weird dream. Figuratively, anyway. It was easy enough to roll with pretty much anything nowadays, after jumping through three different universes other than his own.
But when he had been told that he needed to help stop this awful future from happening, he had been surprised. Sure, he was a supernatural creature, but he ranked pretty low in the grand scheme of special hero types. He wasn’t a god or a superhero, just a werewolf with a rocking bod and trust fund money.
It made a lot more sense though, when he had been told what happened to his future self in this other timeline and how they needed to preserve the balance.
So he had packed his shit and decided to do his part, no matter how small or big it was, because not a lot of other people could. What he hadn’t done was tell any of his friends why he had been specifically chosen to go with the others. They didn’t need to worry about him being possibly thralled in the future, right? Especially if they fixed this shit before it ever happened.
So when this other Caroline came launching herself at him, it took him a second to remember why she would be so happy to see him. Because the him of this place? Was a fucking monster. Luckily, it was a deeply ingrained instinct to hug Caroline back. There was never a time where it wasn’t unwelcomed - we don’t talk about the Dark Times of Klaus Mikaelson - and it had never stopped feeling like home to Tyler to hug the woman in his arms.
“Hey, Care,” he said, smiling back at her. Just like he remembered her from home, even if her hair was a little messier and makeup was a thing of the past. But she never needed any of that to look beautiful. “It’s good to see you.” Though he had literally just left his version of her a few minutes ago, it still didn’t stop him from meaning those words.
It had maybe been a little selfish how much she had wanted to linger in that hug. How much she just wanted to sink back into and pretend like the past year and a half hadn't happened. Tyler had been such a source of strength for her for years now, even before they'd found each other again in Vallo. Having that ripped away and replaced with a husk of who he was before had been so damn hard.
"Hi," she repeated and pressed her hands to her face and shook her head a little as she realized she had repeated it.
"Trip okay?" she asked after she dropped her hands, head tilted a little. As though they were talking about a car ride across town and not magically traveling through time.
“Eh. Could have used a little less sarcasm about turning us into cats for the journey?” Tyler said, catching onto her tone and deciding to stay light with it since she was. The whole fucking battle on arrival could wait to be discussed never. “But 10/10, would ride again.” Which was less of a joke and more of a ‘Glad I decided to come to the future because wow, you look happy to see me and that means things must be SHIT.’ As if fighting for their lives on arrival wasn’t a huge indicator.
Tyler wasn’t sure if she would catch that though, so he put his arm around her and readjusted the bag he had brought through with him so that it was hanging off his free shoulder. “You want to show me where I should be going and tell me about how things suck here?” He didn’t get much out of the time travelers that had come back about Caroline specifically, but he hadn’t wanted to bog them down with questions that weren’t dire, in the short amount of time they spent in the past.
Caroline slipped her arm around Tyler's waist, a habit at this point, but it wasn't so out of their comfort zone as friends that she made herself pull back. Besides, it wasn't like the whole hey we decided to give this a go again and got married thing would be unknown for long.
"How much time do you have for the second one?" she asked as they started walking in towards the cave system. "It's - it's pretty grim," she said honestly. "Bonnie, Enzo, and the twins are at the Outpost too." A pause. "Bonnie… she had Enzo turn her a while back, there was a pretty bad scare with the twins and she thought it best." Caroline knew it wasn't without a cost though.
"Lucas is taller than you now, just a heads up," was said with a little bit of a smile. As awful as everything was, that her son was still alive and making it through was really all she could ask for now.
"I sincerely hope you're not expecting the Ritz," she said as they entered the caves entrance. "Space is pretty tight so you're with me for as much sleeping as any of might manage to get over the next bit here."
"Not like we haven't bunked together before," Tyler said easily, as his eyes roved over the cave. It was…something. His senses were immediately burdened by the strong smells and sounds of such a tightly packed place, but he had enough practice with his abilities that he could overcome that.
Once he did, the rest of what she had to say caught up with him. "Bonnie's a hybrid?" He asked, surprised as he turned to look at her. Then his eyes narrowed. "Lucas is taller than me?" He started to look around, trying to see if he could find what should be a preteen now.
"Sort of?" she answered, her nose squishing up as she thought about how best to put it. "She lost her magic a while ago, or most of it at least, when everyone else was. So I'm not sure if she'd be exactly a hybrid or just a vampire who used to have a lot of magic." Either way it sucked. She knew it wasn't Bonnie's first choice, but you had to do what you had to do.
There was a little laugh though at Lucas being taller than Tyler. "Believe me when I say he lorded that over you for weeks when he finally did get taller than you." Right before everything went to shit, even more so. "And by taller I mean he has about an inch, maybe two on you," she added with a ghost of a smile.
"He's out with the twins right now," she paused. "It's been - really hard, for him," she continued. "With you gone, or not gone," because Caroline refused to believe there wasn't a way back from being thralled. Not after her and Tyler had gone through so much to find each other again, she wasn't going to lose him, not like this. "But you know - not really here."
“What have you been feeding that kid? Growth hormones? Ridiculous, Care, do you know how bad my ego is suffering right now to know that little furball is going to outgrow me?” Tyler asked, clearly joking. It was easier to do that instead of thinking about Bonnie and the choice she had to make. The situation his friends were in now.
He sobered though, when Caroline brought up what happened to this other version of him. He paused, shifting them off to the side, before dropping his bag and then drawing his arms around her. “I’m sorry. But hopefully we can find a way to fix that? I know that’s why the wizards brought us here, so I’ll do what I can to bring back your guys’ version of me.”
"Hey, he just took after me and shot up early," she countered with a small smile. "You remember grade six? I was suddenly the giant in the class before everyone else caught up." The same year her dad left. A bad year. With small town talk and feeling out of place in her own body.
She hugged Tyler back tight when his arms came around her. It didn't feel selfish, seeking comfort in the younger version of her husband. It was comfort freely given, always was between them. And it wasn't the same, of course, but it was enough to bring some much needed strength back into her tired body.
"I know you will," she said easily. She would do anything she could to do the same were their positions reversed. They fought for each other. It was just what they did.
"Lucas said I had to tell you because, and I quote, it's going to be weird either way and this feels less weird," she started, words sort of muffled into Tyler's shoulder. "We got married, almost seven years ago now."
Oh Tyler remembered that year, but not because suddenly Caroline was tall and had boobs all of a sudden. It had been a bad year for his friend and he remembered doing dumb shit like jumping off things he wasn’t supposed to, to make her laugh. Looking back at their childhood from the future was always a trip given all the insane shit that they had lived through, so he refocused on the now.
And proceeded to freeze when his brain caught up with what she was mumbling. He arched his head back so he could look down at the blonde floof hugging him. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, “Uh, run that one by me one more time?”
"You liked it so you put a ring on it?" she offered as clarification with a smirk.
"Look, Tyler, I get that the space both of us are in when you're from? It's not there," she added, her expression empathetic. "So I ger that this is probably weird to think about," maybe not entirely so. They had a history, it wasn't something that might feel completely out of left field, but she also knew Tyler this time ten years ago was in a far different place than a few years later.
"Things might not even happen the same way for you and the me that's going to - hopefully - have a way better future than we got, but I just wanted to give you a heads up, in case someone else said something." A moment to process it with her before it was from someone he maybe didn't know yet quite as well.
Tyler felt a mix of emotions at the news. He was still barely back in Vallo, less than a month at this point. He had been holding out hope that Gabby would come through soon, that he wouldn't have to wait around like a sad sack for much longer because they had never been apart for more than a couple of weeks at that point. Every time they had jumped to another world, it had been together.
And now here was Caroline of the future, telling him otherwise.
It wasn't that he hated the idea of being married to Caroline. On the contrary. Tyler had, back in Mystic Falls, figured they would eventually be endgame. He loved her and she loved him and all the other bullshit would work itself out. That wasn't to discount any of his other relationships, but Caroline…was something else. His wife in this world, apparently.
Still, it was a suckerpunch to find out his wife wouldn't be coming through. But the news that he had still managed to find his way back to Caroline, soothed some of that hurt. So he smiled at her, small but still very present, and asked, "Were you the bridezilla that I always imagined you would be?" Hopefully that cut whatever weird tension he was feeling because he knew his face was probably betraying all the emotions he was going through.
She felt bad dropping it on him, but she also would feel worse if it came up randomly. Everything was already a lot to process and Caroline knew at the least she was a safe place for Tyler to do that. Especially with the timing, knowing the Tyler that just showed up was in a vastly different place than the Tyler she knew.
Caroline reached a hand across and gave his arm a little squeeze. The comment did break a little of that tension and she smiled at him with a little laugh. "Surprisingly, no. It was pretty low key actually," she answered. "Things hadn't gotten as bad as they are these days, but it was getting there. It was just a small thing with our friends and family."
She was sure it might not have been that different either way. Maybe a little fancier, but in the end, that was all that mattered, right. Being with the people they loved.
With lives as unpredictable as theirs, it was a balm to find that he ended up with someone as great and understanding as Caroline, with someone he had so much good history with. At least in this timeline, in this world. But it would still take time to reconcile that with his mind and his heart, though it was easy enough to lean into their friendship and genuine love he had for her and Lucas to put on a good face while he was here.
He could wait to break down over Gabrielle being gone from his life, when he got back to the Vallo he came from. After they defeated this dick that was terrorizing his friends and their lives.
“That sounds perfect, really. Other than the threat of this asshole that keeps looming over you guys. Us.” Because he wasn’t here just to save their world. He was here to help save the Caroline and Bonnie and their kids back home too. Because this threat was a threat to all of them. “Come on. Let’s settle in properly now and you can catch me up on everything else.”